On Pride
It’s a tale too often lived: someone rejects the notion of “X pride” due to X being something unearned, instead being something one is born with by providence. At its surface the argument is sound; after all, how can you be proud of something you were just born with? It almost sounds like vanity! But this argument ignores the long history of the oppression of certain identities, which in turn helps inform Pride.
First, the unasked question: what is pride? Were we to consult a dictionary, we would find two definitions. The first definitions is “a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction in achievements,” while the second definition is “confidence and self-respect as expressed by members of a group; typically one that has been marginalized, on the basis of their shared identity and culture.”
The word pride can have both a positive as well as a negative connotation. A positive connotation of pride would be a father being proud of his daughter for winning the spelling bee, or the mother who proudly displays her long-fought for pay raise to her family. Negative pride would be, to give but one example: the braggart who boasts about a rather generous allowance to the son of the man on welfare. To put it in the simplest terms, positive pride is about lifting someone up, and negative pride is about putting someone down.
“But what the hell does this have to do with Gay, Black, or Asian Pride?” I hear you ask. A good question, to be sure. We must first ask ourselves: why be proud to be LGBT, or Black, or Asian, or anything? The answer, I warn you now, may be difficult to accept.
The history of the oppression of racial and sexual minorities is much too long to be discussed in this writing, but an abridged version will suffice towards the point I am trying to make. In the USA, until fifty five years ago it was perfectly legal in many places to refuse employment and service to a citizen if their skin color was black. In that same country, just thirty years ago, the government refused to control the AIDS epidemic that was killing thousands of LGBT folk, precisely because it was seen as a disease that *only* affected gays. It wasn’t until many straight people started dying from AIDS that anyone started doing anything about it, and by then there were many graveyards filled with dead men, women, and others who sure as hell could have used some help preventing that disease.
A friend of mine said it best: “If you were gay in the 80’s, you knew at least thirty people who died of AIDS.”
Even today, when homosexuality is seemingly more accepted than ever before, the LGBT community still faces discrimination of all sorts. Gay bashing may be punishable, but holding a sermon on a street corner condemning gays to hell certainly isn’t. In spite of the fact that gay marriage has received widespread acceptance, the streets of Salt Lake City remain littered with youths disowned by their families, just for being LGBT. Trans folk still face violence just for existing.
“But what the hell does that have to do with being PROUD of being gay!?” I hear Ben Shapiro ask. The answer is simple: being proud of being gay, or black, or whatever minority is an affirmation of the positivity of said identity. It means that the individual is not sorry to have been born gay, or trans, or black, or Jewish, or whatever.
Imagine if you will being told constantly that you were born wrong; that who and what you are is wrong and that you should feel ashamed of yourself for being born this way. Imagine being told that you are worth less than your peers, that you are of no use to society, a plague to it in fact. To be happy with yourself would be far more difficult under these circumstances, would you not agree?
And therein lays the need for X pride: it’s an affirmation that there is no shame in being black, Asian, Hispanic, or LGBT+. It’s the affirmation that one is HAPPY with oneself, and that no matter what garbage society dares throw or spew at them, their self-love will never falter. It’s like that fantastic Lady Gaga song says: “there’s nothing wrong with who you are…cuz He made you perfect, babe.”
“And what of White or Straight Pride?” Alright, point me to whoever is saying it’s wrong to be born white or straight. Those people are bigots; don’t listen to them. But please understand that hatred for Whites or Straights has never been as systematic as the hatred and shaming of blacks and gays has historically been. It’s not the same to get an anonymous hate message from some kid on Tumblr telling you “I hate white cis-hets!” as it is to be surrounded by a bunch of people ready to literally kill you because you got caught kissing someone of the same sex.
I return to the notion of positive and negative pride. X Pride is a POSITIVE pride, an affirmation that who and what you are is no reason to be feel ashamed; rather, you love yourself just as you are, and NOBODY will EVER take that away from you. So how about it? Let’s celebrate ourselves and be proud of who we are; we’re perfect just the way we are!
